Your Right to Know

DAVOS, Switzerland — Colorado’s Democratic governor said he approached the chief executive of a
fertilizer company here last week, and one of the first people mentioned in their conversation was
Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

“This executive said, ‘Yeah, Gov. Kasich was all over me about Ohio, about coming to Ohio,’ ”
John Hickenlooper said on Saturday, the final day of the World Economic Forum, an annual summit for
global political and business leaders in a small ski community in the Swiss Alps.

“Of course, I was trying to do the same thing, get (the chemical-company executive) to look at
Colorado,” Hickenlooper said. “From everything I’ve heard, Gov. Kasich represented Ohio exceedingly
well. He seemed to be everywhere — that makes it harder on the rest of us.”

The Republican Kasich’s first trip abroad as governor was nothing if not active. Kasich and two
senior staff members flew to Switzerland for the forum — famous for lavish parties, A-list
entertainers and some of the biggest names in business and politics — determined to meet with as
many chief executives as they could to sell them on Ohio.

In four days here, Kasich spoke with Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent and Cisco chief John Chambers,
plus executives of Dow Chemical, ThyssenKrupp and Mitsubishi Chemical. He sat down with Google Vice
President Sebastian Thrun and ArcelorMittal’s Lakshmi Mittal.

There were other meetings with top executives — more than 20 in all. He had meetings with energy
companies and aerospace companies, and companies in other sectors considering projects in Ohio that
Kasich and his aides declined to identify because they are pending.

“This was well worth my while,” Kasich said. “I didn’t want to come to something just to rub
elbows with people; I’m not interested in that. What we found was this was very targeted — a lot of
different people from lots of different companies from lots of different countries all in one
place, and all you’ve got to do is walk across the street to see them.

“I think what’s going to come out of this is a number of delegations from different companies
are going to come into Ohio.”

Therein lies the bottom line for any governor who goes on a trade mission: What is the economic
impact on the state? Former Governors George V. Voinovich and Bob Taft, the two Ohio chief
executives who most recently had gone on trade missions, kept economic tallies of their trips,
claiming that their travels generated hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and exports
for Ohio.

But most of those statistics were compiled and announced over time, not as soon as the governor
stepped off the plane.

“Davos is about relationships,” said Hickenlooper, a two-time veteran of the World Economic
Forum. “You plant a lot of seeds here, but that doesn’t mean you have an oak tree the next
day."

Kasich did produce some immediate results. He said he and Coca-Cola’s Kent agreed to launch a
joint effort to fight obesity in Ohio.

Kasich said he and Hickenlooper agreed to devise a strategy to protect their respective states
from possible federal regulations placed on “fracking” that might supersede the laws crafted in
Ohio and Colorado and stunt growth.

Kasich and Thrun took another step toward bringing Thrun’s for-profit, online program for
remedial and introductory college courses to Ohio. Kasich also might have found a consultant here
who could help his administration (free of charge) examine state government to make it more
efficient — a goal of the governor’s for later this year.

“Just him being here is fantastic,” said Roger Wood, chief executive of Dana Corp., based in
Maumee, Ohio. “Being in Davos allows that kind of dialogue to happen. There’s an audience here
unlike any other in the world.”